Monday, October 31, 2005

Halloween 2005

Halloween is Melissa’s favorite holiday.  The day started with Melissa dressing up like a cat for her Morning class at the pavillion. Melissa took my SD400 over to take some pictures.  Here is a picture of Melissa and Renee Young who teaches the morning class.  Gina Cain took this picture with my little Canon SD400.

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And here is a picture of her class:

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Then Melissa dressed up as a movie star for her evening class.

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I call this next photo, The Hottie, The Nerd, The Senorita, The Witch and The Cowgirl:

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Here is her whole class picture:

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You can check out all of the pictures from here jazzercise class by clicking on Jazzercise 2005 Halloween.

Finally Robby asked us to stop by dairy queen and this is what we found!  Rob is coming out of the closet!

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Melissa commented that Robbie sure makes a pretty woman.  Here is Rob striking a pose with a hottie.  Her name is Rachel Byrd.  She is the one who dolled Rob up with the rosey red cheeks and the lipstick.

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Sunday, October 30, 2005

Melissa Music Video

Yesterday Melissa and I went out to eat at our current favorite place to eat, Wallace Station in Midway.   I wanted to take some photos of the fall colors.  I pretty much ended up taking quite a few pictures of Melissa.

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After we got home and I saw the AWESOME pictures I took of her (I guess I should be more modest), I decided to make a movie.  Well one thing led to another and I ended up making an MTV-like music video.  I posted it for you to see.  The format is in quicktime and the movie is very large 25mb in size.  So only try to view this if you are on broadband.  The original movie was 125mb in size, but I compressed it for Internet viewing.  Therefore the quality suffers a little, but it still is pretty good.  Once Melissa saw this her first comment was “I wish I knew you were going to do this as I would have worn different clothes.” 

To view the movie, click on the image below.

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Thursday, October 27, 2005

Artsy Blaster

I haven’t done any artsy kind of photos lately.  Here is one of Blaster and the lower half of Rob.

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Mike's Movie

Mike made a movie that rocks!   Here is a link to it:  

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Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Out Of Shaving Cream?

I was looking through a few of the pictures from yesterdays photo shoot and this one caught my eye  So, I figured I would share it.  It is apparent that Mike needs to shave.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Mike and Natalie

Mike and Natalie stopped by yesterday and to my amazement actually agreed to a small photo shoot.  This is the 1st time Melissa and I met her and she is awesome! I think Mike actually enjoyed one of my shoots.  I will attribute that to Natalie’s positive influence!

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Sunday, October 23, 2005

Phi Tau Parents Day

A few weeks ago Melissa and I went down to EKU to visit Michael.  It was his fraternity’s parents day.  We had a great time and the young men in the frat are awesome.   We didn’t know what to expect, but we very pleasantly surprised by the excellent manners these young men had.   Here is a picture of Mike:

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They 1st had a little presentation and then we had a cook out. 

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Corn Hole gaming was the activity of choice.

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Midway Kentucky Rocks

While Melissa and I were out taking some fall photography we stopped by Midway. Midway is this very small town just off of I64 between Frankfort and Lexington.  The town got its name because it was the railroad midpoint between Lexington and Frankfort.  This small little town is pretty awesome and if you are in the area or traveling by, you really need to stop in and have some food and visit the stores.  Here is a picture of about 1/2 of downtown Midway.

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Getting back to my story — as Melissa and I were driving around we were near Midway and we saw a sign for Violet’s Bakery. It was in the middle of the afternoon and we decided to stop in and get a snack.  The bakery is in downtown Midway.  We parked and I grabbed the above photo before we went in.  It is a great little bakery shop.  There were several people in there all looking at the showcase having a very hard time deciding among the various treats.  There was a young lady and young man behind the counter.  Both had a familiar look to them.  I was especially intrigued by the young lady as she was behind the counter and seemed very eager to service the next customer — but the indecisive customers were not noticing her.  Her looks and actions reminded me of a young Helen Hunt.  So being the photojournalist that I am, I raised my camera and took a shot.  UGH — the camera was still set for outside shooting so the lack of indoor light cause the shutter speed to be slow and the image turned out a little blurry.  I am somewhat embarrassed to post this, but what the heck — I will just consider the motion blur and artsy type photo.

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Melissa and I were waited on by the young lady.  We purchased a Macadamia cookie and an oatmeal raisin cookie.  When we went outside and before I could tell Melissa that they looked familiar, she said “you know who that was don’t you?”.  And I said no, but she does look very familiar.   She said the she was the lead in Oklahoma. It hit me like a ton of bricks that was indeed who she was.  So I went back in and asked her if she was the lead. And she said yes!   Wow what a treat to actually meet a local celebrity like her.  She also informed me that John, the young man next to her (John Killie – I looked it up in my playbill), was in Babes In Arms. I think he was also the stage manager for Oklahoma. Well before I left I asked if I could get a good picture of her and she graciously agreed.  Again my camera wasn’t set properly as I was excited in the heat of the moment  But this one turned out much better. Here is a picture of her in the store and her picture on stage.

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She is very photogenic.  Hopefully I will get an opportunity to take photos of her again in the future.   I asked if she was going to be in future Maskrafter performances and she is considering trying out for next summers performance of Kiss Me Kate. Hope she gets a major part as she was awesome in Oklahoma. I still don’t know her name — I need to find the old Oklahoma playbill somewhere!  I found it!  Her name is Samantha Tackett.

Here is a picture of John on stage from Babes In Arms.

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What strikes me funny is when I see people in different settings than what I expect, my pea brain has a very hard time placing them.  Oh well, maybe senility is setting in early for me.

After we ate our cookie on the street, Melissa decided that she needed some coffee to go along with it.  So she stepped into the Quirk Cafe.  It is a newly remodeled building.  Here are a couple of photos from inside.  The 1st one is of Melissa ordering her coffee.

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And here is a picture of the steps to the lower level.  The main level is the coffee house and the lower level is a book store. 

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And finally here is a picture outside of one of the newer buildings in Midway. 

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Midway rocks and you never know who you will see there.  So go visit it! 

Infrared Kentucky

Yesterday Melissa went around the countryside and I took several pictures of the fall colors.  I also had my IR camera and took these pictures.  Kentucky is GORGEOUS!

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Saturday, October 22, 2005

Brandon and Irene Cannada

Melissa popped into Kroger to get some items. I waited in the car and was passing the time playing backgammon on my cell phone. As Melissa was getting in the car I heard my name being called.  Looking to my left and there was Brandon Cannada. He wanted to thank me about the nice blog entry that I did.  Which was really nice of him. He is a terrific young man!  Here is a photo of him in the company of a lovely young lady.  I didn’t get her name, but I presume that she is his girl friend.

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We were busy talking and I didn’t notice that his mom was in the back seat till he mentioned her.  Here is a picture of Irene and her daughter Shelby.

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We chatted a for bit. I don’t remember the last time I talked with Irene or Brandon and it was really nice talking to them. We talked about taking some head shots of Brandon and I am looking forward to doing it.  Hope it works out.

 

Jim and Melissa's Most Excellent Day Trip To Elizabethtown

Melissa and I took Friday off.  We decided to take a day trip somewhere.  It was raining and the whole state of Kentucky looked as if it was going to be raining all day so we decided to plan something indoors.  Looking at the Kentucky travel site, we ended up choosing to go to Elizabethtown and seeing 1776.  1776 is a musical being put on by the local community theater group.  We headed out about noon and we knew we could take a leisurely trip down to E-town.  In the mornings paper we read about Wallace Station in Midway (which is on the way).  Wallace Station sounded like a pretty decent place to get something to eat.  So we stopped on the way.  Wallace Station is out in the country and off the beaten path.

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Once we were inside, the place was PACKED!  Always a good sign for a place to eat.

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The food was KILLER.  This is an awesome place to eat!  If you are ever near Midway, eat at Wallace Station (it is a can’t miss) and get a Santa Anita!  We actually got two different ones, the Santa Anita and the Mulberry meets Midway.  Both were great, but the Santa Anita is killer!

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My poor over exposed picture doesn’t do the sandwich justice.  The Santa Anita is the near (over exposed) one.

On the way we got off the express way to check out Bardstown.  Bardstown is very interesting and I suspect we will make a day trip to Bardstown in the future.  While at Bardstown Melissa and I got a snack at BR31.

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Even with our leisurely pace we made it to Elizabethtown in with plenty of time to spare.  We stopped by the tourism office to see how we could kill some time.  We contemplated seeing the movie Elizabethtown in Elizabethtown (how cool would that be?) but decided against it.   So we killed some time in Best Buy, Barnes and Nobles, and Michael’s Crafts.

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Then we had a most excellent dinner at Tumbleweed.

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After dinner we saw an excellent show.  1776 was in the Performing Arts Center which is attached to Hardin County High School.  It is an amazing venue and it will be wonderful when Scott County gets something of this magnitude. Here are some pictures from the show.

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The show was out a little after 10pm and Melissa and I were home by midnight.  We even had time to stop at A&W for a root beer float.  This was one of the best day trips we have ever taken.  Then again, I always say that after our day trips so we must be getting better at it!

 

 

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Melissa is Ellie Mae

I have blogged before about Melissa’s critters.  Well she now has several raccoons that come and feast at our back deck.  They are getting quite friendly and do not run when we look at them.  It was impossible to take pictures of them because the back deck lighting was poor and the images always turned out poor.  I always thought a flash would startle them and they would leave so I never used a flash.  Well, tonight I decided to give it a try.  And guess what?  They are not frightened of the flash.  I took a few pictures tonight and plan to take plenty more in the future and get some real good ones.  They are just so dag gone cute. Here is the best one from tonight.

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Just Some Snaphots

Here are some snapshots I took today.  Nothing spectacular, but these are my favorites from today.

Cookie in a tree.

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Happy looking off my desk.

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Mike protesting his picture being taken.

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Cookie is outstanding in her field!

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